


Once It's Over

by Sparklefists



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Ficlet, Light Angst, M/M, Sleeplessness, accidentally getting what you thought you wanted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:07:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29346348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparklefists/pseuds/Sparklefists
Summary: Seto Kaiba gets exactly what he said he wanted, and lies down to try to sleep.
Relationships: Kaiba Seto/Yami Yuugi | Atem
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19
Collections: Dark Valentines of Dimensions 2021





	Once It's Over

**Author's Note:**

  * For [animorbid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/animorbid/gifts).



> Angst was requested.
> 
> (My personal angst is that I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!)

No matter how much you want something, no matter how hard you work for it, no matter how violently you wrest it from the cold hands of fate… and even when you’ve won, against all odds… that night, you still have to lie down and try to sleep. 

Seto’s bedroom is a precise 16 C, the air purified by a silent filter, the windows sealed. The sheets on his bed are imported Barbados sea island cotton; Mokuba insisted he try something luxurious, Seto refused Egyptian. (For a series of well-articulated rational reasons, which Mokuba pretended to believe.) The blinds are ultra-blackout -- his own engineering -- leaving the room too dark for even his good night vision to make out even vague shapes. But none of it mattered.

Not tonight.

He had won. He had achieved his goal, his highest and most selfish goal. Against odds greater than those faced by an unwanted mongrel kid against a billionaire chess grandmaster CEO. 

He had won.

He found the puzzle. He proved everyone wrong. He built everything he needed. He did the calculations. He did the calculations again. He made the journey. He duelled, and he won. 

And he even made it back in one piece, which was frankly more than he’d bothered to hope for.

Mokuba sobbed with joy. Kaiba destroyed the jet. They went home.

He had been alight with his victory. Hadn’t he?

His pyjamas are buttoned perfectly to his throat, as usual. The room is the perfect temperature. His blanket is the perfect weight. His eyes are open and fixed on the ceiling above him. 

His eyes are damp.

This doesn’t make sense. He did it. He won. This is what he wanted. More than anything. He won. 

He won. 

It’s over.

He slowly becomes sickeningly aware of an ache in his chest. He sits up and picks up his phone to check his heart rate, concerned about lingering physical symptoms from his jump through dimensions, but the phone screen is too blurry to read.

His cheeks are damp, his neck, the collar of his pyjamas. And he’s warm, much too warm.

There’s a metallic taste to the weak light of his phone against the close, dense darkness. The air is tight and warm.

It’s over.

He faced Atem and he won, and it’s over.

He put Atem behind him, in the past, where he belongs.

The phone slips to the floor. His head hits the pillow again. He screws his eyes tightly closed, the bizarre sensation of droplets on his eyelashes tugging at his attention.

Atem is gone.

He saw him  _ today, _ with his own eyes. They duelled. Atem laughed, and fought, and lost gracefully. He said goodbye this time. Something about pride. He was proud of Seto. But Seto had been so focused on his goal. 

And now he’s alone. His chest hurts. His room is suffocating. Atem is gone. 

Is this grief?

He’s sure he grieved when his mother died. He doesn’t remember. 

Maybe he didn’t. Maybe death plants a seed, and the seed of grief needs a space to grow. Seto has been pouring concrete since Mokuba was born. But some seeds are strong and stubborn enough to grow in the smallest, barest cracks. 

Grief is natural, they say. So is death.

Seto has never let what is natural, what is inevitable, stop him. He doesn’t want either grief or death. 

There’s the dry scent of hot quartz on the air. 

He made a mistake. He thought he knew what he wanted. He should have dragged Atem back here himself. Would Atem have survived the journey back? It was cowardice not to try. 

The pain in his chest, in his heart, tightens. The air is so still now. It crackles. The rolling heat dries his mouth, but his eyes are still damp. Wet. Weeping.

“This isn’t what I wanted,” he breathes.

Warm lips brush his damp cheekbone, smudging a tear in a slow, soft kiss. The rich, soft voice comes from very far away to breathe in his ear.

“I know, Seto.”

**Author's Note:**

> The beautiful ambiguity of ficlet allows anything from a magical dimension-hopping gay ghost to a broken air filter causing carbon dioxide poisoning.
> 
> Comments are like Valentine's cards but worth more <3 I would love to hear what you think!


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